


What's in a name?

by SilverBells



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Work In Progress, sort of iron man 3 ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverBells/pseuds/SilverBells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark had been under the comfortable, slightly cocky impression that ‘trying to break into Stark Tower is a very bad idea’ was a widely known and recognised fact. </p><p>It wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. not quite unpleasantly surprised

Tony Stark had been under the comfortable, slightly cocky impression that ‘trying to break into Stark Tower is a very bad idea’ was a widely known and recognised fact.  
Oh, people had tried, certainly, but no-one had ever made it past the first three feet past his or her entrance of choice and yet here he was, eyebrows raised at the screen of his pocket computer, on which JARVIS had just informed him of a break-in. 

At first he’d laughed, thinking Pepper’s mutt of a dog must’ve escaped from the living room– again –or something mundane like that, but now he’d been smacked in the face with a visual of- well… _this._

“Pepper,” he hissed to his clad in red sort-of-girlfriend, “Why is there a girl sitting on the floor of my lab with my favourite screwdriver?”

Pepper shot him an incredulous look, but her eyes widened when Tony showed her the image displayed on his screen.  
There was indeed a girl sitting on the floor of his workshop – well, either a girl or a boy with very long, dark brown hair – with her back to the security camera, hunched over something Tony hadn’t been able to see.  
What he had seen though, was his favourite red screwdriver in her right hand, as she’d picked it up from the floor. (the floor!) 

“I’m going to call security,” Pepper said, looking irked, which was probably more due to the fact that her charity event was interrupted than because of the break-in itself. 

Then, the girl turned around and Tony’s eyebrows nearly rose into his hairline. Which was not reducing, might he add.  
“No,” he said, putting his right hand on Pepper’s left, which had just grabbed her phone to call on the big guys that were posted at the entrance of Stark tower, “Wait.” 

This earned him a well-deserved ‘are-you-bloody-kidding-me?’-glance from Pepper, but that was probably worth it.

For the girl had turned and now it showed that she was working, not on something, but on herself. She was building something on herself.  
Tony Stark was intrigued.  
 ~~  
 _two weeks earlier_~~

~~~~

Clang! BANG! Clangity bang-bang!

“God, _Slum, is there any way you can make_ more sound? _” Liona said irritably, glancing back at her broad-chested, crook-nosed friend. Her voice was a bit snarky and nasal, because she’d once again caught a cold, but she was adamant not to sneeze, as they were currently sneaking through a very dark alley that would lead them to the police station. Not that a sneeze was anything worse than whatever Slum thought he was doing.  
Which was currently an attempt at impersonating a one-man drum band, it seemed. _

_“Sorry,” Slum hissed, just a little too loud and Liona sighed, pulling her scarf a little tighter around her neck as they walked. It was black like the rest of her clothing, similar to Slum’s black sweater and trouser-combination and Liona was appalled by the sheer dullness of it, but it would have to make-do.  
As it were, it had taken her much longer than she liked to find something appropriate to wear, as she wasn’t usually the one having to do the sneaking. Liona was more of a supervisor and much smaller than most of the gang at that.  
Eventually, she’d settled on a very dull black scarf, very unlike the outrageous ones she normally preferred, one of Jazz’s black shirts, some trousers and some off-greyish boots and a hat that covered her long brown hair. _

_Very boring, all in all, except for her eyes, which shone brightly behind a pair of thickly rimmed glasses._

_“I really don’t get why we’re sneaking in anyway,” Slum said dumbly, when they arrived at the end of the alley and Liona peeked around the edge of it, “They said you could get your things back if you filled in some stuff.”_

_Liona sighed, reminding herself that, aside from being a complete clotpole, Slum was the best friend she was probably ever going to have and incredibly loyal and lovely and all that and it was not nice to hit him more than ten times a day._

_“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly my stuff, now is it?” Liona said, looking at his face, which was slightly reddish, even in the darkness, “And since Sunglasses and the Dwarf won’t do it, we’re sneaking, now shush.”  
They’d arrived at the backdoor of the police station and Liona’s bright blue eyes shone mischievously as she gazed at the – to her – primitive lock on the door before them. _

_“Gimme a sec, I’ll have this picked in no-time,” she said, with a sly smile on her face, as Slum kept watch. He was good at that, keeping watch._

_Her fingers made easy work on the lock and she hissed at Slum to follow her as they slipped into the building and through a darkened hallway. It was very downtown police-esque, with its off-white walls and once blue locked doors. Luckily, thanks to James and his countless drunk nights in a cell, she had a fairly good idea of what the inside looked like and they turned left immediately._

_“Li?” Slum questioned again from behind her, making Liona nearly bite on her tongue off to keep herself from shouting at him._

_“Yes?” she answered through gritted teeth, as she peered up a staircase and decided that, yes, this was probably the right one. Not that this petty excuse for a law-enforcement building had a lot of staircases, but still._

_“Ain’t your laptop yours?” Slum’s voice sounded like he was genuinely trying to understand and Liona fondly formed a picture of his concentrated face in her mind.  
Big and broad, as usual, but with a comical expression of confusement plastered over it, she imagined, while he scratched at his thick black hair and blinked his equally big brown eyes. _

_“Of course it is,” she answered, opening another door and closing it when it turned out to be an office, “but it’s not_ ‘officially’ _mine, since Jazz stole it from that Banner-scientist-dude when he disappeared and you know how much our babes in blue like official stuff, Slummy,” she answered, opening another door and closing it when it turned out to be an office._

_“So you won’t get it back if you fill in the papers.”_

_Liona nodded, then realised Slum would probably not be able to see her in the dark and then whispered her “Yes, that’s why we’re here to get it.” instead._

_She nearly jumped with joy as she noticed a door to her far right with ‘storage’ written on it not moments later and pulled on Slum’s sleeve to direct them to it._

_“I’d bet my favourite shawl on it that it’s in there, Slum,” she said, as she pulled out her ever handy metal pin and got to work._

_Slum simply grunted._

_“_ Hah-ha! _” she whisper-shouted, as the lock clicked and she rose to her feet with a triumphantly cocky expression, “I mean, I prefer the more electronic ones, but this works.”_

_She nearly threw the door open and then ran inside, looking for her little, black laptop, on which she had foolishly stored everything that was precious to her. It couldn’t be too hard, seeing as most of the crap they'd stored here was much bigger and/or colourful than her inconspicuous little laptop, but she was anxious to have it back in her arms sooner rather than later._

_“All my goddamn programs,” she muttered, shaking her head at herself. She should’ve made a backup. Stupid girl._

_“Liona?” Slum’s voice called, rather loudly, from the other side of the room– meaning the other side of the rack that stood in the middle of it –“I think I found it.”_

_Liona smirked, success! “Okay, get it and we’re outta here!” she said and turned around, only to come face to face with a rather angry looking man in blue and an even more angry looking dog in black fur, which was growling at her as if she was a bloody streetcat.  
God, she hated the dogs. She’d been scared of them ever since she’d been a little girl and the trained ones were even worse. Nasty things. _

_“Well, hello there,” Liona said with a little wave, after a moment of staring into the bright light of the flashlight the man was pointing at her, “Would it be any help if I said I could explain?”  
She couldn’t of course, but it was worth a try and she’d been told she had a very convincing innocent face. _

_Before the policeman had the opportunity to answer her, something big ran past her and forcefully tackled the agent. Big, for Liona, mostly always meant Slum, so she sighed in relief, said; “Yeah, I didn’t think so either,” and started running. She jumped over the policeman’s body and hauled at Slum’s arm to get him moving from where he was laying on top of the poor man. Alarms started ringing all around them, with flashing red lights and everything.  
Way too fancy for a petty law-enforcement building._

_“C’mon Slum, up you go,” she said to Slum, as he rose with a grunt and started running with her, away from the unconscious man, “Do you have my laptop?”_

_Slum grunted again, as they thundered down the stairs and back into the first, still off-white, blue-doored hallway. She took it as a yes._

_“When we’re out, we divide, okay? Don’t let them get us bo-”_

_An excruciating pain erupted from a point just above her left elbow and she screamed as something heavy pulled her down, agony shooting through her from her arm, all the way down her spine and to all her nerve-endings._

How _could she have forgotten about the dog? How?_

_The dog had, by command or otherwise, persuited them and had sunk its teeth thoroughly into Liona’s upper arm. She could feel the blood gushing out of the wound and she heard the voices of policemen behind her.  
Way too many for a late-night shift at a petty law-enforcement building._

_“Run!” she screamed at Slum, who was standing at the exit already; him and his bloody big legs, “GO! NOW!”_

_And he listened, as he always did, trusting Liona to know best and he turned and ran and she prayed to god he would make it._

_Her shouting had earned her another growl and a tear from the dog and she froze in pain, knowing moving would only anger it. She grimaced in pain, focussing really hard on not trembling.  
God, she hated dogs. _

_Not moments later, a loud order made the dog let go, as someone crouched beside her and Liona almost moaned in relief, though her arm still throbbed painfully.  
The off-white floor wasn’t as off-white anymore, she concluded blearily as she lay there; flat on the ground and panting in her stupid dull clothing, knowing she’d lost. The feeling really bloody sucked_

_“Good evening, Miss Liona, is it?” the person next to her said slowly and Liona rose her head to glare at him, only to realise her glasses had fallen of her nose somewhere along the lines and thus simply glared icily at the general direction of the blurry blue blob beside her.  
“My,” the blur continued, “I’m almost disappointed by how easy that was, I was told you were a sneaky one.”_

_A trap. It had all been a trap, Liona realised, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, refusing to give the man, whom she’d already classified as an A-rank asshole, any satisfaction over her defeat._

_“Our little genius thief, bit of a Robin Hood complex and terribly annoying,” said the blur, sounding awfully pleased with himself, “Well I guess the sheriff won this time, huh?”  
She remained silent, focussing instead on the throbbing pain in her elbow, while she mentally ranted at herself for not noticing the– now painfully obvious –trap. _

_She felt the blur come closer, until she could feel his warm, coffee-and-cigarette scented breath ghost over her face. “Do you know what they did to thieves in king Richard’s time?” he whispered and paused, probably to smirk, before he rose again. She imagined him as a very fat, ugly, tiny man and simply grunted in response.  
He chuckled. _

_“They chopped off their left hand,” he answered for her, “It’s not quite allowed nowadays. That's a shame, really, for punks like you.”_

_Sadistic as well? Oh yes, he was definitely overcompensating for something._

_“Then again, maybe I can convince your appointed doctor to do you a little_ favour _.”  
Favour?_

_And then, she was in agony again, the wound in her elbow paling in comparison to the hellish pain of having all the bones in her left hand broken in one, slow, deliberate movement of the man’s boot.  
She shrieked- like a dying pig, she would imagine -howled in anger as the man simply laughed and then buried her teeth in his ankle. _

_“Ow! You fucking little-”_

_The last thing she remembered, was a vast kick to her head and then nothing._  
 ~~  
 _present day_ ~~

Tony stark walked down the stairs to his lab a little slower than he normally did, after he’d left an anxious Pepper to wait upstairs, glancing through the glass door to where the girl was still sitting on the floor. She didn’t appear to have moved since he’d seen her on his screens and she was still sitting with her back towards him and Tony still felt intrigued, for some reason or another and hardly compelled to call the cops on her. She didn’t appear to have actually done anything, after all. 

It was still irking as hell, though, to see her sitting so calmly on _his_ bloody floor. 

“You know,” he said, as he leaned against the doorpost, “I was under the impression that I’d installed impeccable burglar alarms.” 

The girl’s back straightened slightly as she caught his words and then let out a quiet sort of laugh. “Yeah, sorry about that,” the girl said, her voice high and kind of gravely, “I might have _broke_ some of them along the way. The locks as well.” 

Tony’s eyebrows rose, dangerously close to his hairline, as he was also under the impression that his locks were pretty hard to pick, let alone by a little _girl_. 

“So,” he inquired, rubbing tiredly at his face – seeing as it was nearly two in the morning and he’d had a tiny bit too much to drink – “Why exactly, for purely my curiosity’s interest, did you feel the need to demolish my safety-system?” 

“It was in the way,” the girl deadpanned with a shrug of her shoulders, “I tried to be as gentle about it as I could; it’s a very nice setup you’ve got here, but there were some–” she momentarily trailed off, holding up a welder to let it cool, “– unexpected factors.”  
Her accent was probably New Yorkish, Tony thought, the sound of it somehow familiar to him, though he couldn’t quite place it. 

“Were there now?” the billionaire said indulgently, as he quietly walked up to the girl, straining his neck a little to get a look at her lap. Tough luck, though, she was hunched over too far for him to get a glimpse. 

“Yeah,” she sighed, her shoulders drooping, “Funny how things work that way, I mean, I’m not really happy about this either, you know?” She sounded tired as well and Tony frowned at her words. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony answered, annoyed by her off-handish attitude, “But you’re currently working in the most advanced working-environment in the _world_. Could you sound– oh I don’t know –a tiny bit more impressed, maybe?” 

This caught her attention; she laughed. She flat out _laughed_ and Tony frowned at the high, humourless burst of sound. 

“This?” she said, sniggering still, “ _This_ is, by far, the most shocking display of egocentrism I’ve ever seen.” She chuckled again and picked up the red-screwdriver again, making Tony’s fingers itch, “ It’s a handy chemistry set, though, I’ll give ya that.” 

Feisty little thing, wasn’t she? Tony’s frown deepened; he was normally very appreciative of well-placed insults and sarcasm, but with five- six vodka shots swirling around his stomach, he found it hard to see the humour of the situation. 

It was, of course, kind of humorous to find a little _girl_ – because she really couldn’t be more than fourteen, fifteen at the very most –had broken into your house and your laboratory and was, instead of stealing and/or breaking things, sitting on the floor, adamantly calm and cynical about the whole situation. Well, humorous to someone like Tony, at least- Well, a sober Tony. Which he wasn’t. So he simply ordered JARVIS to restrain her, smirking slightly as she yelped offendedly when she was unceremoniously raised in the air by the same robotic arms that normally helped him into his iron man suit. 

“That,” the brunette said, looking terribly like Pepper’s dog when he’d fallen into the bathtub, “Was really unnecessary.”  
This was true, but something else caught Tony’s attention; she’d tried to point at him. She’d tried to point at him, but had been unable to and winced, as she dangled about three feet above the floor. She'd pointed with her left arm and the iron man’s stomach turned at the sight of the grotesque sort of metal claw that was attached to what was left of it. 

This had what she been working on and he kind of understood now why she’d come to him, because the thing awfully reminded him of the first version of his life-saving magnet device, before he and Yinsen had created the first arc-reactor.  
Apparently her arm had been removed, up until her elbow and not very long ago either. He wasn’t an expert– thank god, because that would incline being a doctor –but that wound looked awfully fresh. 

“Aren’t you in pain?” were his first words to her, as he came closer to examine the device. She let him, to his surprise.  
 _She_ appeared to be some sort of an expert, at least – and he could swear she didn’t look older than fourteen –because she’d re-opened the stitched skin around her elbow and had attached various wires into the bloody flesh, which in turn were attached to long clunks of metal, reminiscent of her radius and Ulna and it was all looking awfully painful and messy. The whole structure was rather clumsily supported by a harness that went around her upper arm and shoulder, but at the same time; it kind of seemed to work. All in all, Tony Stark was impressed.  
It was ugly and clumsy, definitely, but it was also completely genius, if the wires were indeed attached to her nerves, or supposed to be attached to her nerves, as he suspected. 

She was making herself a _new arm_. 

“Yes,” she said, after almost a full minute of silence, in which he'd examined her- well, _claw_. He looked at her in question and she sighed, “Yes, I am in pain.”

“Then why?” This question earned him an annoyed look and a huff, which lost most of its sting due to her dangling position, so she rolled her eyes and hissed: “Same reason you made yourself that thing in your chest, Metal Man, because I want to _function_. Normally.” 

He gently let go of the claw, so it fell back against her side and she winced again. “A metal claw isn’t exactly what most people define as normal, I suspect,” he said, with a nicer voice than he’d expected of himself.  
She looked away, her brown hair flicking into her face and Tony could swear he saw tears blinking in her eyes. Her claw twitched, as the other curled into a fist and she said; “Just function, then. I’m not living without an arm.” 

Tony wanted to suggest things like prosthetics, robots and toe-exercises, but he didn’t.  
Instead he said; “Well, it looks like you need some help with that.” 

The look she gave him was enough to make him smile, as he made a mental note to let _her_ tell Pepper she would have to re-schedule all of his appointments for at least a week.


	2. In which Pepper thinks this might just be a good day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper Potts had once thought herself a very balanced, strong woman, capable of han-dling even the worst of Tony Stark on a bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my lovely PerfectPaige, because she's wonderful and should forever remember that. <3

Pepper Potts had once thought herself a very balanced, strong woman, capable of handling even the worst of Tony Stark on a bad day. 

This had changed drastically after Tony’s abduction and his change into Iron-Man and it had taken her quite a while to get used to the new swing of things. She’d nearly been killed– multiple times –and she’d been both CEO of Stark-industries and Tony’s sort-of-girlfriend, the latter of which still kind of applied. Both jobs were demanding and stressful, on top of her worries over the Iron Man himself, and they’d shaken her to the core.  
Not that it wasn’t worth it, at the end of the day when she’d found herself wrapped in his arms, but it’d taken her a while to re-arrange her inner sanctuary, so to speak.

Eventually, she’d learned to trust Tony and his capability of handling most things Iron-Man related, though she still checked and worried, and she found a way to cope. Found a strength in herself that was fuelled by the thought of those arms around her.  
This was why, during the Loki-affaire a few months back, she’d been strong enough to take over most of Tony’s workload for Stark-industries and let him deal with the clan of super-strangeness.  
Her reaction had given her a new sort of confidence and a calming reassurance that she swas _still_ a very balanced, strong woman, capable of handling even the worst things that fell onto her and Tony’s shared path, even on a bad day.

What she hadn’t expected, however, was _Tony’s_ reaction. 

After said Loki-affaire, when the big blonde brute had taken his misbehaving brother back to his world– or realm, or something –to do who knew what with him, Tony, as Iron Man, along with most of the other Avengers, had started helping with the re-construction of New York; severely damaged after the battle for Stark Tower.  
She didn’t know much about the others, other than that Steve– correction, captain America, had supervised most of the civilians and volunteers.  
She remembered that Tony, for some reason or another, had found this rather amusing.

The Iron Man himself had been helping with clearing debris with some help of the green guy, whose lust for violence had apparently been soothed for the time being. She’d tried to catch as little of that as possible. Not that she didn’t like Dr. Banner, but the green guy frightened her to bits, as well as the sight of massive boulders on what she knew to be Tony’s shoulders. She’d loved helping him with the innovative new designs for corporative buildings and housing for the victims, though.

After that, well, everything else just really dulled in comparison to the huge project of rebuilding the entirety of Manhattan and he’d reverted, mostly, to alcohol and paperwork.  
Pepper had been pleased by the latter, but extremely worried by his other, more destructive ways of dealing with his issues.  
He slept more than he used to, but she’d found him at ungodly hours of the night, polishing his suits in his lab, or passed out on a random surface with unreasonable amounts of alcohol in his system and she’d had to drag him from his balcony in the middle of a thunderstorm at one point.  
He’d always had a weakness for the strong liquids, but this had been worrisome, even for him. She’d feared he was slowly falling back into his old, partying-playboy habits and even the paperwork didn’t include more than the odd autograph here and there, scribbled down without even reading the papers she held in front of his face most of the time, so even that sucked.  
In other words, Tony was bored and a bored Tony Stark was like an uncontrolled projectile.

He’d even attended her annual charity-event– something he usually avoided like the plague –which was probably just because there was alcohol served. 

And then, he’d found the girl in his laboratory. Liona-who-apparently-wasn’t-in-the-possession-of-a-last-name.  
To Pepper, this basically screamed criminal and dangerous, but Tony had taken to her in a matter of hours. Pepper grudgingly had to admit that was a feat worth of a tiny bit of respect, seeing as most people didn’t succeed in gaining Tony’s attention for years, if at all. 

Pepper shook her head at the sight of them; he was bend over the uncomfortable looking table she was strapped to, working on her artificial, metal arm and she was staring at the tablet Buddy held in front of her face, talking to Tony. She was giving him readings or something similar and looked a little pained. 

Well, Pepper would probably look a little pained too, if someone had strapped her onto a table and started poking her amputated arm. 

In the week that followed her arrival, Tony Stark had apparently found himself, after months of boredom– since the world just couldn’t spit out a decent supervillan for him to fight –enthralled by a new project. It was albeit an unexpected and unusual one, but even Pepper had to admit it was good for him. She didn’t trust the girl one bit, but at least she was able to distract him enough to stay away from his destructive tendencies. He was busy and that was enough.  
She didn’t quite get what they were doing and why, but apparently they were building the girl a new arm.  
Lovely. 

“Tony, I really need your approval on these shippings,” she said, barging through the glass doors as per usual, her heels clicking on the floor. Tony’s head rose up from his work at the third click, his eyes hidden by a pair of dark goggles. The girl acted like she wasn’t even there, now working on herself with a bright yellow screwdriver.  
At least he’d managed to retrieve his favourite red one from her. 

“What shippings?” Tony asked distractedly, as he looked at her with a frown and then blew the dust his welding had left behind from the claw.  
Pepper sighed, “The shippings for THONOS, Tony, I told you about them yesterday.” “I was really tired yesterday, we had to attach her bone to the main–” “I really don’t care.”   
Tony looked indignant. “You can’t expect of me to just _remember_ all the–” “Tony, this stuff is important.”  
He put down his welding electrode and put his goggles on top of his head, “Her central nerve-system is important, too, do you know that’s what generates all the awesome feelings that make you moan like a-”  
She wasn’t even going to let him finish, “These people are counting on us!”

“Well frankly those people can go–” - “As do I!”

Her voice broke a little at the last sentence and this shut him up, looking at her like he really saw her only now, and he frowned, slightly worried.  
“I’ve been inattentive again, haven’t I?” he questioned eventually, rising and wiping his hands on his very expensive trousers.  
“Yeah, you kinda have,” she sighed, leaning against him as he enveloped her in a hug. As always, it was wonderful to just be in his arms; it’d occurred less and less lately and she realised how much she missed it, as all the tension seemed to evaporate from her muscles. 

“Do I really have to watch this?” a snide voice interrupted their little moment and pepper tensed immediately at the sound of Liona-no-last-name’s voice  
“Shush it, you, I’m busy,” Tony said over his shoulder, making and off handed moment towards the table.  
From over his shoulder, she caught the roll of the blue eyes as the girl sighed; “Yeah, because I’m totally not strapped to a table, in severe danger of bleeding to death, or anything. Go ahead, smooch, don’t mind me.”

Tony chuckled into his girlfriend’s neck, kissing it gently before he pulled back and said; “She has a point, I should get back to fixing her wiring, before the muscle is too severely damaged,” he nodded towards the papers she still she still held in her hands, “I’ll sign those later, okay?” 

“Promise?”  
Despite himself, he smiled, “Promi-”  
He was interrupted again, and Pepper Potts, balanced, strong woman, capable of handling even the worst of Tony Stark on a bad day, sighed at the sound of the equipment-alarms going off and the shared curse of Tony and Liona, wondering just how she’d talked him into this, as she turned around to get back to her work, and how the hell she lost her bloody arm in the first place. 

~~one week, six days earlier~~

_Liona woke with a start, burito’d in several crispy white duvets, her hair, greasy and lifeless, hanging in her face and a headache the size of mount Doom._

_Trust her to think of hobbits at a time like this._

_Everything around her was blurry, both because of her lack of glasses and the fact that a thick cushion seemed to have nestled itself inside her brain._

_She wiggled around, irritated by her own state and winced, as sharp pains attacked her senses from several directions. It was terribly disorienting._

_Everything around her was white as well. White and blurry and irritating._

_The first and foremost pain came from her left arm, but Liona found herself confused by the source of her pain. She foggily remembered feeling the bones in her hand being crushed by the agent’s boot and yet here she was, with just an aching elbow. Where she’d been… shot? No– bitten! Bitten by a dog._

_She shook her head in an attempt to clear the fog in her brain, but stopped immediately, as it thump’ed excessively in protest. Her right hand shot up to feel and came in contact with a thin layer of bandages and several strands of greasy hair.  
She groaned softly and began attempting to unwrap herself from the sheets instead, pulling at the wires that were attached to her chest and arms. _

_Of course, this only resulted in more shocks of pain and the start of insistent blaring from the machinery next to her, but Liona gritted her teeth, meaning to get the hell out of this place as fast as possible and swung her legs off the bed.  
At least those hadn’t been injured, as far as she could remember. _

_A loud slam, which made her head thump again, resounded through the small, empty room she was in and she looked up to see several white blurs approach her and vagually thought;_ right, no glasses, I figured I’d forgotten about somethimg _before she was not ungently pushed back into the bed. Naturally, she screamed in protest._

_“Ow, shit, what the hell!?” she said, as something pricked her in her right arm and she flailed against the unwelcome pressure, hitting something that felt satisfyingly like a human chest pretty hard._

_“Restrain her!” said a voice and Liona was tightly held by three– maybe four pairs of hands as a more gentle, female voice told her; “Come on sweety, time to go back to sleep.”_

_“I don’t wanna go back to fucking sleep, allright?” screamed Liona, struggling against the hands on her shoulders, hips and legs, “Let_ go _of me!”_

_“Come on, settle down,” the voice hushed and it became harder and harder to move around, though she kept writhing and bucking until exhaustion overcame her.  
Was it possible to inject someone with lead, or metal? Her limbs felt heavy like that and she tried to move them, but was unsuccessful. She blinked a few times in confusement.  
The blinking got slower and slower, as she realised having her eyes closed was actually, kinda, pretty nice. _

__'I think I could do with some more sleep' _she thought, just before her eyes slipped shut again._

 ~~one week, five days earlier~~

_The next time Liona woke, she was far less hazed than the first time. As she would later conclude, she’d probably been under the influence of some pretty heavy pain medication or something and it had probably worn off.  
Now, in counterpoint to the first time, she remained still for at least three minutes straight, re-thinking everything that happened before she carefully attempted to sit up. Let it remain unsaid that she oomph’ed and moaned quite a bit in the process. _

_Glancing around, she concluded she was in a small, vacant hospital room and there was something really, terribly wrong with her.  
She didn’t immediately figure out what it was, as she carefully ran her fingers over the surface of the bedside-table on her right and found her glasses, but when she did, she could only stare at the empty space where her hand should’ve been, gaping at it like a fish on land, for another half a minute, before she screamed– loudly. _

_“What have you_ done _to my hand?” She shrieked at the first nurse that entered the room, “what the_ hell _have you done?!”_

_Once more, the nurse attempted to gently push her back into bed, but Liona smacked her hand away and fisted her– thankfully still functioning –right fist into front of the poor woman’s irritatingly white uniform.  
“My arm,” she snarled, “what happened?”_

_The woman’s dark brown eyes widened at the venom in her voice and mumbled; “It was amputated?”  
Liona simply stared at her, blue eyes blank and eventually came to the conclusion that she _ really _couldn’t resist._

 _“Really?” she said, faux-sweetly, teeth gritted, “Thanks for clearing that up, I’d been under the impression that it’d simply_ melted _.”_

_The nurse, who had been carefully plucking at her fingers, managed to unclasp Liona’s fingers from her uniform and gently put it back down on the bed.  
“I’m really sorry, but almost all the bones were broken beyond repair, your middle and index-fingers were completely shattered, we thought it was the best option.” _

_Slowly, Liona sunk back into the soft cushions of the bed out of her own accord._ The best option _, it had been the best option. Dear god.  
She slowly blinked up to look at the nurse again, who was now gently re-arranging the bedding, giving her sympathetic looks every now and then. _

_“It ain’t so bad, darling,” she cooed, when she reached Liona’s cushion, patting at it in favour of Lionas head, “try to look at the positive side of things! At least it’s not your right arm, right?”_

_The nurse smiled, as if she’d just single handedly figured out the singularity theory and Liona had to grit her teeth and clench her fists– fist, to keep from hitting her.  
“Get out,” she said instead, trying to keep her temper in check. _

_“I’m sorry?” said the nurse, sounding offended._

_Liona glared at her, blue eyes flashing behind her glasses, “I said; Get. Out.”_

_The unsuspecting nurse let go of the bed as if it had electrocuted her, uttering a confused; “but, why?”_

_Leona huffed, feeling like tiny puffs of smoke should be spiralling out of her ears by now. This one was apparently_ really _stupid and Liona– for good measure –snarled again; “Get out, before I_ throw _something at you!”_

_The nurse, eyes wide, took a few steps back until she was almost at the door, leaving Liona almost satisfied until the wench decided that telling Liona she “–should really be a bit more grateful!” was the best way to go._

_“I’ll show you grateful!” Liona shrieked, grabbing the closest item in reach, which fortunately happened to be a vase with hideous flowers, and hurled it at the door, which closed just in time to shatter it against the irritatingly white surface._

_“Because I’m bloody left handed, that’s why!”_

~~fourteen weeks earlier~~

She was facing the window, her body hidden by the high back of the chair. He could see her reflection, though only partially, in the window and took a deep breath, glad and hesitant to be in her presence. 

“Milady?” His voice was unwavering, yet laced with that tinge of nervousness that gave him away to his mistress immediately.

“Anthony, my dearest darling,” she responded sweetly, as her hand waved him closer, “What happened?”  
Her voice was demanding, her face hidden by the shadows of the darkening evening, while her legs shone smoothly in the flickering of the fire. There was only the vague hint of a dress covering her. He swallowed.

“The reverse-electromagnetism blueprints,” he spoke quietly, wringing his hands together on the carpet behind her, “They’re…” 

“They’re _what,_ Anthony?” she replied and he watched with wide eyes as she sat up in her chair, her posture not unlike that of a snake, waiting for its prey to make their final mistake. He could feel her anger tainting the air, like she was physically in charge of whatever happened in that room. 

She _was_ , of course, but it’s an aggravating thought that she might be able to influence _everything_. He doesn’t put it past her. 

“They’re– missing.” 

He could practically feel her eyes narrowing. “Missing. _Missing?!_ ” she hissed, angered– naturally –by the fact that _her_ plans had mysteriously disappeared, “How can they be _missing_? They were in an unbreakable safe, of which only you and I know the combination, protected by all our safety systems.” 

He fumbled with his hands again, which really isn’t easy, because they were dry and calloused and he should really invest in some proper lotion.  
“It was, open when Dr. Aergia arrived there this afternoon,” he mumbled and watched as she froze in her chair. 

“So they were stolen, then?” 

“Y-yes.”

There was a moment, a long moment of silence, before she moved again and he was surprised to find she chuckled, though humourlessly. 

“Oh, Anthony, you brainless lump of meat,” she sighed, a sound bordering on obscene and he went to fumble with his tie instead, “And be thankful you’re not the brain behind this company.” 

“Yes, milady.”

“Now leave and bring me the safe,” she ordered, her hand waving again, this time in dismissal.  
He frowned

“The safe, milady?” he questioned, confusion obvious in his voice. 

“Yes, mr. Vali,” she snapped, “The safe, now.” 

Back to last-names, then. 

He murmured his consent and quickly left the room, shaking his head at yet another completely odd demand, yet convinced it had to have some sort of goal.  
Miss Helena’s orders always served a greater good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this I spy with my little eye? A plot? 
> 
> PLOT WHAT PLOT? 
> 
> As it is, I'm kind of having loads of fun with the plot, which I'm... plotting. Timelines, character discriptions and lists of ideas and everything. I'm also laughing at how blatantly obvious I'm being about everything.  
> Sneaky me. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
